Enjoying your relaxing Sunday night? Well we’re about to make it even better: check out this interview with Dead Man’s Dinner actor Annalisa Loeffler. She’s here to tell you all the delicious details about our show!*
(*Pun intended)
Annalisa Loeffler plays Olympia Oates in DEAD MAN’S DINNER
How would you best describe your feelings about the about the play?
I love it.
What is your favorite part of the play and why?
My favorite part of the play is the relationship between Olympia and Jackie. Despite their vast differences, under different circumstances I think they would very much have appreciated each other, if not actually enjoyed each other’s company. And this is very present in the writing: even though they are in an almost constant battle for ascendancy, there is a (grudging?) respect and appreciation that these women have for each other underneath the conflict.
Which character in Dead Man’s Dinner do you most relate to and why?
I most relate to the Dead Man’s Dinner character I’m playing: Olympia (and that’s probably for the best, right?). She is a mother and an actress living in NYC, and so am I. She’s not particularly fond of the friend her daughter has chosen – I’ve definitely had some less than positive feelings about a couple of my son’s friends (although thankfully I haven’t had to try to kill any of them off). You can tell by the way she’s written that she LOVES language, as I do. Reading a well-turned phrase is delightful; getting to say one is DELICIOUS.
Who is your least favorite character and why?
I love all the characters. I’d be thrilled to play ANY of them. What’s so amazing about the world the playwright has created is that there are no clear-cut villains and victims – they are all villains and victims at different times. These people are completely three-dimensional: there are moments where you love and hate each one – moments where they can make you laugh out loud or weep a little. I don’t have a least favorite (and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell!).
What made you want to work on this play?
Three things:
It’s a REAL PLAY, by which I mean it takes place in one setting, within a reasonable timeframe and with a manageable number of characters. So many contemporary plays really seem more suited to be screenplays that someone has put on stage: 20 scenes, 14 characters, a timeline of years (or decades!). Working on a new “real play” is a real luxury these days – there just aren’t that many out there.
The LANGUAGE is amazing – I love that I get to say the things I say in the manner in which they’re written.
Strong, wonderful WOMEN CHARACTERS – off the charts on the Bechdel–Wallace test. And in addition, these are not cookie-cutter women! The ingénue is definitely not a standard ingénue, the mother is not a standard mother, and the love interest is not a standard love interest. You have not met these characters before elsewhere.
What’s your favorite thing about the character you play?
The dichotomies in Olympia’s character make her a delicious challenge. She has an inherent grace and dignity, which she has for the most part maintained through horrific conditions, but when the circumstances demand it she can genuinely and believably descend to a very base level. She is a devoted mother, but not cut in the traditional, selfless mode – she is very flawed and quite frequently selfish.
What part of the play did you struggle with the most?
At one point I said to the director, “In this play, even the subtext has subtext!” And it’s really true. There’s so much going on with these characters. They’re saying one thing, meaning something completely different, but often with an intention that provides a third layer of meaning. And they’re all important to the storytelling, and they all need to be clear. That is definitely the biggest struggle for me: living up to the challenge of the complexity of the writing. I just hope I can do it justice!
Any possible themes that stood out to you?
The theme that most resonates with me is “What’s more important: love or life?” I think it’s fairly safe to say most (if not all) humans want both. And we all know we can live without love, although we might not choose to. But sometimes love requires the sacrifice of life – whether it’s your own or someone else’s.